


Undercover

by trailingoff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Owl Mistreatment, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Cigarettes, Coming Out, Drug Addiction, Falling In Love, Gay Sirius Black, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Sirius Black/Others, POV Sirius Black, Sad Sirius Black, Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, Sirius Black's Flying Motorbike, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-29
Updated: 2007-11-29
Packaged: 2020-10-11 16:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20549057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailingoff/pseuds/trailingoff
Summary: Sirius was tired of lying.





	Undercover

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LiveJournal twelve years ago during my long dark tea-time of the soul.

\---  
1.  
\---  
  
  
The shop door opened, jingling a bell. Sirius looked up from the Hendrix albums he’d been browsing. Two Muggle blokes walked in, shaggy-haired and dressed like Sirius, in badge-studded jackets and flared jeans. They nodded to the girl behind the counter and then swaggered to the back of the shop, barely glancing at the shelves.   
  
Sirius shuffled in their direction, his boots quiet on the thick brown carpet, casually thumbing records along the way. The Blues section was in the back corner, crammed with musty albums only Remus could have loved. Sirius stopped there, keeping one eye on the Muggles as he flipped from F to H. They were standing at the second-hand stack, the brown-haired one perusing while the blond looked on with amusement, nodding in time to the faint punk music in the background.

“There’s a new club,” he announced.

“What’s it called?”  
  
“Asgard.”   
  
The old Norse word for heaven, Sirius knew, but the brown-haired bloke glanced up from a Chubby Checker record and asked, “Eh?”  
  
“Don’t know what it means,” the blond admitted, shrugging. He leaned on the poster-coated wall, his palm flat against Johnny Rotten’s mouth. “Anyway, it’s at Charing Cross Station. One of the arches, you know?”  
  
“Hear anything more?”  
  
“Nothing. You up for it?”  
  
“Tonight?”  
  
“Have something better to do?” the blond asked with a smirk.  
  
His mate chuckled, self-deprecating, and nodded. “All right, then.”  
  
The blond sent Sirius an unfriendly, fleeting look. Sirius made a show of holding up a Billie Holiday record, reading the tracks and nodding to himself. His eyes caught on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do”and he smiled, wondering what Remus would think.  
  
“Excuse me,” said a voice from behind him.   
  
Sirius spun around, almost dropping the record. “Oh, sorry.”   
  
It was only the girl from behind the counter. Twiggy-thin and dressed all in orange, down to her suede boots. Sirius glanced behind her for the Muggle blokes, but they’d already gone, the bell tinkling as they closed the door.  
  
“Just wondering if you need assistance or anything,” said the girl, cracking her gum and batting her two-inch blue eyelashes.  
  
“Er … thanks, but actually … I’d just like to get this,” Sirius stammered, holding out the Billie Holiday album.   
  
“Ooh.” The girl giggled, taking it and sashaying back to the counter. “So romantic, this is.”  
  
“Actually, it’s for a friend of mine.”  
  
“Ah.” The girl slid the album into a brown paper bag. “Hope she enjoys it.”  
  
Sirius couldn’t be bothered explaining, so he just scowled and took out his wallet.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
With the album tucked under his arm, Sirius walked the five blocks back to his flat. He stopped at The Dancing Haddock for hot chips wrapped in grease-paper, then picked up a bottle of milk from the grocery. It was owned by an elderly woman with a plump white cat, who always chatted about her grandchildren. “You need some fattening up,” she told Sirius, slipping him a bag of crisps as he was leaving. He grinned when she gave him a sly wink. “A handsome lad like you should have a girl to cook for him.”  
  
Outside, Sirius ripped open his steaming hot chips and pulled one out, wincing when it burned his fingers. He walked towards his block of flats, blowing on the chip to cool it down, before taking a careful bite. It sizzled his tongue anyway. “Fuck,” he muttered.  
  
“Suave as ever,” said a familiar voice.   
  
Remus was sitting on a bench in front of Sirius’s building, smoking a cigarette. His pale brown hair was down to his shoulders and he hadn’t shaved in more than a week. A huge purple backpack, stained and torn, lay on the bench beside him. Sirius hadn’t seen him in the two months since graduation.  
  
“Moony? Aren’t you in Thailand?”  
  
Remus smiled and got to his feet, flicking his cigarette into the gutter. “Apparently not.”  
  
They hugged awkwardly, patting each other on the back, the grease-paper bundle of chips between them. Remus smelt of curry spices, incense and sea-salt. There was black earth in his fingernails and a fresh scar above his eyebrow.  
  
Sirius’s grocery bag was digging into his elbow. “You coming up?” he asked.  
  
“Can I have a chip?”  
  
“As many as you’d like. Come on, then.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“I brought you something,” Remus said, rooting around in his backpack. “It’s um … well, it’s sort of useless, but anyway. I got it in Japan.”  
  
It was a motorbike helmet, black and silver, and shiny as obsidian glass. Sirius turned it over and over in his hands, grinning at the distorted shadow of his reflection. When he pulled it over his head, it was loose for a moment and then it adjusted, perfectly, to the shape of his skull. “Brilliant.”  
  
Remus swallowed a mouthful of chips before speaking. “Now all you need is a bike.”  
  
“I’ve got my sights on one.” Sirius tugged off the helmet and set it in his lap, stroking it like a cat. “Not sure where I’d put it, though. Lily doesn’t want it in her precious garage, apparently. Wish I’d bought the two-bedroom flat instead of this dump.”  
  
“What about Wormy?”  
  
“Still living with his mum.” Sirius grabbed a handful of chips, stuffing them in his mouth, and Remus made a disgusted noise. “What?” Sirius asked, around the chips.   
  
“Manners, Sirius.”  
  
“Fuck off.” Sirius tilted back in his chair, resting his boots on the kitchen table. “It’s my flat, Moony. I can do what I like.”  
  
“Just because you can turn into a dog, it doesn’t mean you have to live like one,” Remus scolded, as Sirius devoured the last of the chips.  
  
“Yes, Mr Prefect, sir.”  
  
Remus looked around at the grubby counters and dish-stacked sink. “Got any napkins?”  
  
Sirius laughed and licked his palm, slobbering like a dog.  
  
Remus scowled and got up to wash his hands at the sink. “So, when’s the wedding date?”  
  
“Why, looking forward to being the flower girl?”  
  
“Looking forward to being Lily’s maid of honour?”  
  
Sirius licked last salty grease from his thumb and rubbed his hands together. “Good luck catching the bouquet. I know how much you want it.” Remus tossed a dirty dishcloth at Sirius’s head, and Sirius caught it left-handed, smirking. “You throw like a little girl, Lupin.”  
  
“Well, you look like one, Black.”  
  
Sirius stuck out his tongue.  
  
Frowning, Remus turned around and drew his wand from the deceptively small pocket of his jeans. In a few seconds, Sirius’s dishes sat in a neat, gleaming pile beside the sink. “See how easy it is?”  
  
Sirius swallowed, setting his chair back down. “Moony …”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I haven’t, er …” Sirius shifted uncomfortably, tossing the dishcloth from hand to hand with a restless flick of his wrists. “Look, it’s not important.”  
  
“Honestly, you can’t say something like that and then leave me hanging.”  
  
Sirius scratched his eyebrow and stared at the floor. “Except for turning into Padfoot, I haven’t used magic since school, all right? I just … I don’t know why.”  
  
The blood drained from Remus’s face. “But you’re carrying your wand?”  
  
Sirius bit his lip and shook his head.  
  
“Fuck,” said Remus. He ran a hand through his hair; when he looked up again, he was composed. “Well, you’re an adult, Sirius. If you want to put yourself in danger, that’s your decision.”  
  
“Moony, it isn’t like that. I just don’t want to be—” Sirius threw his hands up in the air, exasperated when Remus’s calm expression didn’t flicker. “You’re right, why am I even justifying it to you?”  
  
“You’re being ridiculous. You’re not a Muggle, and you never will be.”   
  
Sirius bowed his head. “Don’t.”  
  
“Look, Sirius—”  
  
“Just sit down and tell me about your trip. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”  
  
“You’ll never change, will you? You’re a child,” Remus spat out, grabbing his backpack from the floor. His hands were shaking.  
  
Sirius followed him to the door. “I’m sorry,” he said, as Remus slid on his patched leather jacket. “Come on, Moony, stay a bit longer.”   
  
Remus met Sirius’s eyes and then leaned his forehead against the door, his body relaxing. “Promise you’ll at least carry your wand again.”  
  
“Yes, fine, I promise,” Sirius insisted, holding his hands up in surrender. “I’ll go get it now, all right? It’s on my bedside table.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
The wand made Sirius’s palm sweat to hold it; he hadn’t touched it in weeks. When he took it into the living room, he was rewarded with Remus’s rare grin. He flopped onto the couch beside Remus, tucking the wand into the pocket Lily had sewn into his sleeve.  
  
“I’m glad I could talk some sense into you,” Remus told him. “Does James know about this?”  
  
“Prongs wouldn’t notice if I walked around in the nude,” Sirius muttered, and started picking at his bitten fingernails.  
  
“Ah.”  
  
Sirius decided not to say any more about James. “I just wanted to live like a Muggle for a while—”  
  
“—and then it got out of hand?”  
  
“Something like that, yeah.”  
  
They stared at each other, until Remus shrugged, reached out to the coffee table and picked up the Billie Holiday record, still in its brown paper bag. “What’s this?”  
  
Sirius grinned. “Bought that for you, actually.”  
  
Remus raised his eyebrows, staring at the record as though it might explode.  
  
“Oh come on, you nance, open it.”  
  
With a put-upon sigh, Remus took out the record and examined it. Sirius went back to picking at his nails, wondering why this suddenly seemed so important. He felt a little sick until he looked up at Remus’s face.  
  
Remus was smiling faintly, but Sirius couldn’t tell if he was pleased. “How did you know I’d like …?”  
  
“I didn’t—I just saw this song—” Sirius reached over and tapped “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” with his thumb “—and thought of you, of course.”  
  
To Sirius’s relief, Remus laughed. “Of course. Thank you, Padfoot.”  
  
“Want to listen?”  
  
Remus nodded, taking out his wand and levitating the record to Sirius’s dusty turntable. It clicked on, and in a few seconds the room was filled with Billie’s scratchy, smoky voice.  
  
_“In my solitude, you haunt me … with dreadful ease of days gone by … In my solitude, you taunt me … with memories that never die … I sit in my chair and filled with despair … there’s no one could be so sad …”_  
  
Her melody caught on each word with a sensual kind of pain. By the end of the first song, Sirius had started to feel a bit lonely, even with Remus right next to him.   
  
Sirius watched Remus, wondering how he felt about the music, but Remus’s face was impassive and his hands were clenched in his lap. He was staring out the window, his skin warmed by the autumn sunlight. Dust motes settled in his hair.   
  
“Why are you back so early, anyway?” Sirius asked, and his voice sounded clumsy and loud.  
  
“Oh.” Remus shook himself a little. “I ran out of money.”  
  
“I thought Josephine was paying for most of the trip. Wasn’t it a birthday present?”  
  
Remus nodded, his mouth tightening. “Jo left me, on the second week.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“It was my fault. I had to disappear for the moon, to the Embassy, and she was convinced I’d gone off with another woman. I thought I’d set up a reasonable excuse but she wouldn’t have any of it. She got so angry that she locked me in the motel bathroom without my wand. I was pounding on the door, listening to her tear up our room as she packed. She was shouting at me in that odd mixture of French and English, you know the way she does—anyway, by the time I got the door open, she was gone.”  
  
Sirius wanted to ask Remus why he hadn’t just told the truth, but he’d asked that question in sixth year, once, and gotten a black eye as an answer. This time he just nodded sympathetically, hoping Remus wouldn’t clam up.  
  
“I decided to keep travelling,” Remus continued. “I had to live rough, sleep outside sometimes, but it was worth it.”  
  
“Where did you go?”  
  
“Through the Mediterranean, then Turkey, Morocco and Egypt, then India, China and Japan, and then down to Vietnam and Thailand. I was about to head to Australia when the last of my money was stolen.”  
  
Sirius whistled, impressed. He’d never been further than Germany. “Tell me all about it,” he said, leaning back on the couch and waiting for Remus’s quiet, even voice to begin.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
They ate Sirius’s last two cans of baked beans for dinner, Remus making soft sounds of contentment with every spoonful. Sirius glared at him, taking it for sarcasm, until Remus murmured, “I missed this terribly; you’ve no idea. There’s only so much curry a bloke can take.”   
  
“Want a beer?”  
  
“You’re drinking Muggle beer now?”  
  
Sirius walked over to the fridge. “I’ve got a taste for it. Wormtail likes it too.”  
  
“What about Prongs?”  
  
Sirius shrugged, pulling two bottles from the fridge. “He drinks whatever Lily drinks. Who knows what he likes anymore?”  
  
Remus frowned but didn’t say anything; not like Peter would have. Sirius waited for a reprimand or an understanding nod, but it didn’t come. Remus was listening, accepting, without offering judgement or advice. It was exactly what Sirius had needed these past months, and it made him weak with gratitude. He took the bottle-opener from a drawer and popped off the lids, handing Remus’s beer over with a broad grin.  
  
“Cheers,” said Remus, smiling back.   
  
They clinked the bottlenecks together and gulped down a few mouthfuls.  
  
“You never answered my question,” Remus said. “About the wedding date.”  
  
“Three weeks,” Sirius mumbled, into his beer.  
  
“That’s soon.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
They finished their drinks in silence.   
  
“Lily wants to start having children next year,” Sirius muttered, tearing the label from his bottle in thin strips.  
  
“Does she?”  
  
“You know Lily. No time like the present, and all that.”  
  
Remus cleared his throat. “Have you heard from Dumbledore at all? What’s going on with … well, you know.”  
  
“No. Nothing.” Sirius closed his eyes. “It’s going to be war, I reckon, depending on how the Ministry plays it. I stopped getting the _Prophet_ when my owl died, but Dromeda’s been keeping me up to date.”  
  
“Johanna died?”  
  
“A couple of weeks ago.” He kept his voice light, but he really missed her. She’d been a tenth birthday present from Regulus, with black plumage and a temper to match. No one had ever really liked her; not even Regulus. Even so, Sirius had gone for days at a time with just Johanna, a joint and his turntable for company.   
  
“Sorry to hear that,” said Remus. “Aren’t you going to buy another one?”  
  
“I’d have to go to Diagon Alley.”  
  
Remus nodded. He flicked his wand at the fridge, levitating a couple more beer bottles over to the table and then popping them open. “What have you been doing with yourself, Padfoot?” he asked, handing a beer to Sirius.  
  
“Nothing much. Going out to pubs with people, usually just Prongs, Lily and Wormtail. Going to gigs. Seeing Ted, Dromeda and little Dora. Reading books and watching the telly. Exploring Muggle London, the rest of the time.” Sirius paused, remembering the conversation he’d overheard at the record shop. “Actually, I just found out about a new club at Charing Cross Station, called Asgard. You know if it’s any good?”  
  
Remus froze, his beer halfway to his mouth. He stared and stared at Sirius, until Sirius glanced around nervously.  
  
“What?”  
  
Putting his beer down, Remus chuckled under his breath. “That’s a club for poofs, Padfoot.”  
  
Sirius flushed, thinking he couldn’t have heard right. “It’s a what?”  
  
“A place where young blokes come together and have a gay old time. Do I need to make it plainer?”  
  
Sirius hid his expression by taking a long drink. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears. He thought back to those blokes at the record shop. They’d seemed so normal, not like queers were supposed to be. Not all glittery and poncy like David Bowie. They’d seemed just like Sirius, really. He probably should have known they could be like that, and not like everyone had always said. He couldn’t be the only one, after all. Why hadn’t he known? Why hadn’t he _said_ something?  
  
“I didn’t know they had clubs,” he confessed.   
  
“Fair enough. Good thing you asked me about it, though, otherwise—” Remus started laughing again “—you would’ve had the shock of your life.”  
  
  
\---  
2.  
\---  
  
  
Sirius took the tube to Charing Cross, like he had after the last Christmas holidays. He felt odd going to the station without his school trunk, wearing a new leather jacket instead of his robes. He sometimes forgot he wasn’t at school anymore.   
  
There weren’t many other people on the tube on a Saturday night: just an old married couple glaring at a group of teenage blokes in ripped-up denim and safety pins. One spat on the carriage floor and the one next to him clapped him on the back, grinning; then they both doubled over with laughter at the looks on the old couple’s faces. Sirius turned to stare at the window, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
His reflection was pale and hollow-eyed in the fluorescent light, and he noticed a small red pimple on the tip of his cheekbone. He remembered how the girls at school had stared at his face, this face, and followed him around. How he’d lied to his friends, so many times, the lies growing elaborate until they almost seemed real, as though he’d really been behind the greenhouses with Miranda Weasley, slept with Emmeline Vance on Filch’s desk, and spent all summer romancing a German bird called Gertrude.   
  
He remembered the posters he’d stolen from Ted’s magazines and stuck on his bedroom walls at Grimmauld Place; those smooth, soft Muggle girls watching over him as he slept; those girls with their smiling eyes. How he’d ended up hating them as much as he’d hated himself.  
  
Sirius was tired of lying. Tonight, for the first time in his life, he was going to tell the truth. But he could only do it as a Muggle.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Asgard was like all the other Muggle clubs Sirius had been to, except there weren’t any women, and as soon as he walked in he saw two blokes kissing on the dance floor. He’d never seen men kiss each other before. For an instant it looked wrong, it looked like it shouldn’t be happening, even though he’d imagined it a million times.   
  
The men were dancing in one great, sweaty mob, with a jostling queue at the bar. Sirius stood against the wall, watching and tapping a foot to the throbbing disco beat.  
  
_“… to have the kind of body, always in demand … jogging in the morning, go man go … works out in the health spa, muscles glow … you can best believe, that he’s a macho man … ready to get down, with anyone he can …”_  
  
“Want a fag?” a middle-aged man in skin-tight leather asked in Sirius’s ear.  
  
“Don’t smoke,” Sirius lied, sidling away.   
  
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting but he wanted to leave already, just get out of there and into the cold night air. It was too crowded, he told himself, and the music was too loud and not really his kind of thing; but really he was afraid, more afraid than he’d ever been. These were men like him: these were his people. If he couldn’t fit in with them, that would be it.  
  
Pushing his way along the outside of the room, he ended up in a corridor that led to another dancefloor. “Fuck,” he whispered. How big was this place? There didn’t seem to be an end to the men, all of them smiling, all of them dancing energetically. They were all here together, Sirius reminded himself; they were all here telling the truth, together.   
  
A bloke about Sirius’s age gave him a wink and pushed his way over. “Your first time?” he shouted, his mouth close to Sirius’s ear.  
  
“Is it obvious?”  
  
The bloke laughed, his breath tickling Sirius’s neck. “I’m Paul.”  
  
“John,” Sirius replied automatically, the name on the false ID card he’d created, before he realised and they both started laughing.  
  
“Think we should start a band?” asked Paul.  
  
“Why not?” Sirius asked, moving closer. His palms were sweating; he was shaking; he struggled not to sound like a broken-voiced schoolboy.   
  
Paul wrapped a sweaty arm around Sirius’s waist, under his jacket. His light-brown hair brushed against Sirius’s forehead. “Want to be the Lennon to my McCartney, then?”  
  
And that was that.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Sirius walked out of the club at three, his swollen lips stinging in the cold. He licked them and pulled on his jacket, Paul’s phone number rustling in the pocket. A cab was driving past so Sirius hailed it and slid into the backseat. The driver stared at him in the mirror but didn’t say anything, just sneered, and Sirius was glad he’d tucked his wand beside his wad of Muggle money.  
  
“Baker St. Station, thanks,” said Sirius, not wanting the driver to know his address.  
  
When he got out of the cab, he paused and looked around at the deserted streets. The sky was hazy with light from the orange electric lamps, but there were a few gleaming stars, and the air was crisp and pleasant on Sirius’s skin after the heat of the club and Paul’s wandering hands.  
  
Sirius walked with his hands deep in his pockets and a swing to his step, and he wondered why, why, _why_ he’d never kissed another bloke before. He’d wasted years trying to enjoy kissing girls, when he could have had _this_. The taste and smell of it, the roughness and desperate grasp of it; finally he understood what the fuss was about.  
  
He jogged down past the record shop, The Dancing Haddock and the grocery store, and then swung around on the electric pole outside his building, under the glow of a streetlamp, like a Muggle in one of their music films.   
  
  
\---  
3.  
\---  
  
  
At two in the morning of James and Lily’s wedding day, Sirius was smoking his tenth cigarette and watching a platinum blonde shake her bare tits in James’s face.   
  
James, horrified and thrilled, tried to tuck a twenty-pound note into the woman’s knickers, but dropped it on the sticky pink carpet instead. Remus just looked bored, staring out into the crowd, while Peter had disappeared half an hour before, lost in the cluster of men around the glittering stage.  
  
When Sirius had planned James’s stag night, he’d anticipated a few Butterbeers in the Leaky Cauldron for old time’s sake. He wasn’t sure how they’d ended up in a strip joint. He’d downed a few too many shots of Firewhisky and before he’d known it, the four of them had been in a cab heading straight to his own personal hell. Pussy Galore: Londons Premier Ladys, according to the magenta neon sign out front.  
  
Sirius had found it easy to pretend, at first. He’d gaped and laughed and joked around with the others, acting like he was aroused. Eventually, though, he’d sobered up and over-compensated, making crude remarks about the women and ranking them out of ten, until even Peter had rolled his eyes. Remus had clammed up, Sirius had started smoking, and James had talked incessantly about his cold feet and his desire to run away to New Zealand, drinking like he hadn’t done since fifth year.  
  
Now James was gulping the last of a rum-and-cola, seemingly hypnotised by the stripper’s nipples. She was swaying like a snake to the music.  
  
_“You keep lyin’, when you oughta be truthin’ … and you keep losin’, when you oughta not bet … you keep samin’, when you oughta be changin’ … now what’s right is right, but you ain’t been right yet … these boots are made for walkin’ …”_  
  
Sirius lit his eleventh cigarette and took a puff.  
  
Remus checked his watch and turned to Sirius. “The wedding’s in eight hours,” he shouted across the table. Sirius could still barely hear him over the music. “We should get Prongs out of here. Wormy can take care of himself.”   
  
“Oi, Prongs, we’re leaving,” Sirius yelled, getting to his feet and pulling on his jacket.  
  
Remus stood up too and tugged at James’s arm. James grinned lopsidedly as the stripper shimmied away, and then scowled as Remus and Sirius hoisted his arms across their shoulders and started moving towards the exit. “Won’t let me ’ave any fun,” he whined. “Bloody traitors.”  
  
“Come on, Jamie, your ball and chain await,” Remus muttered, when they were finally outside, their breath fogging the air.   
  
“Wanker,” James spat, struggling half-heartedly. “Don’t make me do it—don’t make me—oh fuck, I’m going to be sick.”  
  
They stumbled down the dimly-lit alleyway beside the club, Remus watching the entrance while Sirius made sure James didn’t choke on his own vomit and end up like Hendrix. As James heaved his guts out onto the cobblestones, Sirius wished he’d had the balls to leave the club earlier, but it would have looked odd after the way he’d talked about the women. He wished he could take that back, too.  
  
Actually, maybe he could. He met Remus’s eyes and opened his mouth to apologise.  
  
“Women are human beings, Padfoot,” Remus scolded, as though he could read Sirius’s mind. “Just because those birds are being paid to prance around doesn’t mean we’re any better than them.”   
  
Remus’s arms were folded and his legs were braced slightly apart, in what Sirius secretly thought of as the stern father stance. He’d even seen Remus’s dad do it.  
  
“Can we talk about this later, Moony? It’s just …” Sirius gestured to James, who’d passed out next to his pool of sick. “I think we should do a side-along Apparition.”  
  
Remus perked up a bit at that. “You’re using magic again, then?”  
  
“No, but you can take us both, yeah?”   
  
There was a silence, while Sirius grinned at Remus’s exasperation, and James gasped wetly against the ground, his glasses hanging from one ear. Then, with a sigh, Remus grabbed Sirius by the wrist and bent to take James’s elbow.  
  
“One of these days,” Remus told Sirius solemnly, just before they jolted away. “One of these days, when you least expect it, I’m going to kill you.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“I _know _women are human beings,” Sirius insisted, as Remus methodically stripped James from his jeans, corduroy jacket and shirt.  
  
Remus shrugged and pulled back the blankets from one side of the bed. “Help me get him under the covers.”   
  
Together they rolled James’s bony, goose-bumped, half-naked body, then covered him up and tucked him in. They sat on the end of the bed, Remus slumped with exhaustion and Sirius wired with nicotine and his usual insomnia.  
  
“Want a fag?” Sirius asked.  
  
“In Lily’s bedroom? Are you serious?”  
  
“Why not?” Sirius laughed, taking out a cigarette and lighting it with his brown-plastic Muggle lighter.  
  
Remus just put his face in his hands. “Do what you will. I give up.”  
  
“Oh, _finally_.”  
  
“Lily’s going to kill us,” Remus moaned.  
  
“Well she’s not back from her hen’s night, is she? I bet she’s worse off than Prongs.”  
  
Remus laughed, tilting back to lie on his elbows. “Hopefully.”  
  
Sirius reached over to tap ash on the bedside table. “Look, I know women are human beings, all right? I just got a bit carried away. You know how I do.”  
  
“I know,” said Remus, smiling up into Sirius’s eyes. “I know.”  
  
Sirius really wanted lean down and kiss him.   
  
“Oh fuck.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing.” Sirius stubbed his cigarette out on the base of a hideous antique lamp; probably Lily’s favourite. He stood up and backed towards the door. “I’m going to the lav and then I’ll pass out on the couch, all right?”  
  
Remus shrugged and shifted up the bed, sprawling out beside James on top of the covers. “All right,” he murmured, around a yawn. “See you in four hours. I’ve set my wand to start ringing then.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Lily’s mum burst into sobs halfway through the ceremony. Without a word, without even turning his head, Lily’s dad took out a big white handkerchief and handed it to her.   
  
That’s when it hit Sirius. He was surprised it hadn’t occurred to him earlier. He’d survived the wedding preparations: the tuxedo measurements, the rehearsal, and Lily’s obsession with finding the perfect cufflinks and button-hole flowers. All through that, Sirius hadn’t stopped to think about how he’d never be able to marry. The priest spoke about joining a man and a woman together; there was no chance of it being changed to a man and a man, till death do they part. People would laugh at the idea.  
  
Sirius had always expected to get married someday. When he’d been a little boy, his mother had made an arrangement for him to wed, at the age of eighteen, the daughter of a wealthy, well-connected French family.   
  
He’d sat on his mother’s lap, with one of her small white hands stroking his hair, while she’d shown him a picture of a smiling blonde girl. He remembered his mother’s velvet dress and lilac perfume, and her voice as she’d told him that the girl would be a proper pureblood lady, schooled at Beauxbatons. Of course, the arrangement had been cancelled when Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor. For a few years, his parents had tried to find another suitable partner, but then Sirius had run away and made it a moot point.  
  
“Sirius!” Remus hissed from beside him, and Sirius remembered where he was.   
  
His wide smile was still fixed on his face; hopefully he just looked dazed with happiness for his best mate. He pulled out Lily’s ring and, with a flourish, gave it to James.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Oh Merlin, no,” Sirius groaned, when the saxophone blared out the first few familiar notes.  
  
“There _is_ no Merlin,” Remus muttered, and they shared a look of amused horror.  
  
A freckled girl, clearly one of the Weasley clan, appeared beside their table. Sirius thought her hair clashed dreadfully with her orange dress robes. “Excuse me—” she began.  
  
“I’m going out for a smoke,” Remus announced, getting up and vanishing into the crowd.  
  
Sirius glared after him, then sighed, drained his champagne flute and stood up, offering his arm to the girl. “May I have this dance?” he asked, smiling.  
  
The girl blushed, blotchy red, and looked like she might swoon. Sirius took her arm and pulled her onto the dance floor, just as the singer began to warble into her microphone.   
  
_“Oh come and stir my cauldron … and if you do it right … I'll boil you up some hot strong love … to keep you warm tonight …”_  
  
Sirius looked down at the girl, hoping to make conversation, but her eyes were dazed and she was worrying her lower lip with her teeth, completely useless. He wished he could have a normal talk with a girl for a change.  
  
The dance floor was packed with men and women dancing cheek to cheek. Sirius glanced around at them, watching their smug, happy smiles as the women’s skirts swirled across the polished floor. A few couples, he noticed, were kissing; and suddenly he felt like he was being choked by his bow-tie.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sirius told the girl. “I need some fresh air. I’m really very sorry.”  
  
He pulled away from her and pushed through the crowd, while middle-aged women muttered things like, “Well I never!” and “What a rude young man!”  
  
Outside, leaning against the balcony rails and trying to get his breathing under control, he listened to the last part of the song. He took out a cigarette and struggled to light it, but his hands were shaking so much that he dropped both the fag and his lighter. Scowling, he stooped to pick them up.  
  
Just then, the door to the balcony flew open.  
  
“Sirius Black!” Lily shouted.  
  
“Oh fuck,” he muttered, straightening up.  
  
Lily marched up to him, nearly tripping on her wedding gown but recovering nicely.  
  
“How dare you? _How dare you?_ You unfeeling, selfish—”  
  
“Lily, please—”  
  
“Don’t try to weasel out of it, Black, for once in your pathetic waste of a life.”  
  
That actually hurt. “Honestly, Lily, I didn’t mean—”  
  
“You never do, do you? That’s the problem. You never even give a passing _thought_ to anyone’s feelings aside from your own.”  
  
Sirius couldn’t really deny that one; after all, he’d spent half the wedding ceremony and most of the reception thinking about his own feelings. He just didn’t think they were the same feelings Lily was imagining.  
  
“I’ll go and apologise. I’m really sorry, honestly.”  
  
“You can’t,” Lily spat. “Mildred already left with her mother. In tears, mind you.”  
  
Sirius bent his head and rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry, Lily. I’ll owl her a note—I’ll do whatever it takes to—”  
  
Lily’s face contorted with disbelieving anger. “You think I’m falling for that act, do you? How many times did I see you use it on McGonagall? Do you _really_ think I’m that stupid?”  
  
There wasn’t a good answer to that question, so Sirius stayed quiet. He watched as Lily paced back and forth a little, trying to smooth her hair from where the wind had picked it from its tiny pearl-tipped pins. He thought it suited her better when it wasn’t slicked down; it glowed around her face in the candlelight, like a lion’s mane.  
  
“This is just—” Lily spluttered. “This is just the last straw. I’ve had it with you, Black; I really have.”  
  
“Wait a moment, what else have I done?” Sirius asked, starting to feel a bit angry himself. “Recently, I mean. Go on, tell me all my sins. I hope you’ve got them down on a list. ‘Number One: Today Sirius drank milk straight from the bottle’, ‘Number Thirty-Two: Today Sirius stirred his tea in an anti-clockwise rather than clockwise direction’, ‘Number Three-Hundred-And-Nine: Today Sirius—’”  
  
“Oh shut it, will you,” Lily screeched. “I’m talking about _James_.”  
  
Sirius paused, confused. “What about him?”  
  
“What about him?” Lily parroted. “What a-bloody-bout him?” She turned to stare out into the gardens; lawns and hedges lit by golden floating lanterns. “Yes,” she muttered to herself. “This is exactly what I expected.”  
  
“Have you gone mad?”  
  
Lily turned back to face him, slowly, and spoke in a dangerously quiet voice. “Not a day goes by that James doesn’t talk about you. Whenever I think I’ve heard every conceivable tale of your Hogwarts misadventures, he finds a way to tell me another. At first it was mildly amusing, you know, _haha, what a funny story, darling_, but then it became really rather boring, and now it’s just … it’s just unbearably sad.” Her volume was rising. “James spends half his life thinking about you and planning things so he can meet up with you—dragging me along in the process, I might add—and you sit there all cool in your leather jacket and talk to Peter most of the time. You don’t give a toss about my husband, do you? And you mean the world to him, you really do.”  
  
Sirius just gasped at her, like she’d punched him.  
  
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”  
  
When Sirius opened his mouth, he realised he was going to start crying, so he quickly turned away and swallowed a few times. “Lily, you’re right,” he managed. “But I honestly didn’t mean to do any of it. I’ve just—Lily, I can’t—it’s just—James is my brother, my real brother, and I love him, and it’s so terrible to think—” Sirius didn’t know how to finish that sentence; otherwise he would have blurted everything out. He took a couple of steadying breaths.  
  
“You realise I’ve no idea what you’re getting at?” Lily asked. To Sirius’s relief, she seemed more puzzled than angry.  
  
“Look, I promise my poor behaviour will end tonight.”  
  
“See that it does,” Lily snapped. Gathering her skirts with a dignified sweep of her hands, she strode back inside.  
  
Sirius was crying before he realised what was happening. He wasn’t sobbing, but tears were sliding down his cheeks, into the corners of his mouth and the hollow of his chin. Well, he thought grimly, queers were expected to cry in situations like this, after all.  
  
“Want a fag?” asked a voice, out of the shadows beside the door.  
  
“_Fuck_,” Sirius hissed, as Remus walked towards him from where he’d been leaning against the wall. “Fuck, Moony, I completely forgot you were out here.”  
  
“You don’t need to tell me that—oh Christ, Padfoot,” Remus whispered, “you’re crying.”  
  
Sirius roughly wiped his eyes with his sleeve, but the tears kept dribbling. “Mates don’t point that kind of thing out,” he said, sullen with humiliation. “Or don’t you recall Rule Twelve of the Marauder’s Manifesto?”   
  
“All right,” said Remus, stiffly turning away. “I’ll keep my concern and my handkerchief to myself, and we can pretend you had something caught in your eye. Have a splendid evening.”  
  
Sirius reached out and clasped his elbow. “Wait, Moony—”  
  
Then Remus was holding him, stroking his hair, and he was still crying. His body shook and Remus soothed his back with broad, warm hands.  
  
“I feel like I’m nothing, Moony,” Sirius murmured, into Remus’s padded shoulder. “You ever felt like that?”  
  
“Yes.”   
  
Remus rocked him a few times, gently, and kissed his forehead, before stepping away and handing over a tattered red handkerchief.  
  
“We’ll laugh about this one day, you know,” said Sirius, after he’d blown his nose.  
  
Remus just smiled and straightened both of their bow-ties.  
  
Sirius fell in love.

\---  
4  
\---  
  
  
Sirius spent a few evenings at Asgard searching for someone as good as Remus, or at least passable as a substitute. He ended up leaving early every time. He couldn’t even dance with a bloke without closing his eyes and imagining it was Remus. No one smelled or tasted quite right; no one had that same glint in his eyes.  
  
“Surely it’s just a passing madness,” Sirius told his new owl, Louise. He’d paid Peter to buy her at Diagon Alley. “It’s not really love; it’s a silly fancy.”  
  
Louise hooted and ruffled up her silver feathers in disdain.  
  
“Fat lot of good _you_ are,” Sirius muttered. “I hope you know you’re not a patch on Johanna.”  
  
Louise turned her back on him and wiggled her tail-feathers. Sirius went back to lying on his purple living-room rug, listening to Bob Dylan’s _Bringing It All Back Home_ over and over again. His favourite song was the last on the album.  
  
_“Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls to you … Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you … The vagabond who’s rapping at your door, is standing in the clothes that you once wore … Strike another match, go start anew … and it’s all over now, Baby Blue …”_  
  
Sometimes Sirius lay there as Padfoot; sometimes he read Muggle autobiographies; sometimes he smoked pot; sometimes he made origami cranes out of wedding napkins, shimmering gold. Remus had taught him origami. Always, he thought about Remus.  
  
He’d thought about Remus before. He’d thought about James and Peter, too. Shamefully, disgusted with himself, muffling his voice into his pillow, he’d thought about each of them at one time or another. He’d never thought of Remus like this before, though. This wasn’t the same as lust; this was downright odd.   
  
Sirius lay on his floor, listening to Dylan, and thought about the pale skin right underneath Remus’s ears, and how he wanted to kiss it, just with a brush of his lips. He thought about Remus’s voice, wanting to curl up in bed and listen to it all night long. He was in love with Remus and it didn’t seem like he could stop.   
  
Was this how James had felt about Lily, for all those years? Sirius wished he’d been more sympathetic.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
A month after the wedding, Sirius finally gave in and bought the motorbike. Fortunately, Arthur Weasley hadn’t heard about the incident with Mildred.  
  
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Arthur beamed, rubbing his hands together with childlike glee. “Confiscated her from a gang in Brixton. I’ve remodelled her and given her a new coat of paint, of course. Oh, and I added the side-car. Don’t you worry, lads; no one has a hope of recognising her now.”  
  
“Brilliant,” said James, climbing onto the butter-smooth leather seat and gripping the handlebars. “If you don’t take it, Padfoot, then I will. Lily doesn’t have to know.”  
  
“Yeah, Padfoot, you should get it,” Peter added.  
  
“You realise this is all highly illegal,” said Remus, from where he was leaning against the back wall of the shed, between the cobwebs and shelves of rusty tools.  
  
“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Moony. Besides, you bought me the helmet.”  
  
“Not for a _flying_ motorbike,” Remus huffed, but when Sirius turned around he saw the excitement tugging the corner of Remus’s mouth.  
  
That’s when Sirius knew he had to buy it. It would put a dent in his inheritance, but it would be worth it; he’d never had great plans for Alphard’s money, anyway. The side-car, though, presented a bit of a problem. Not only was it clunky and unattractive, it would give Remus a place to ride instead of on the seat with him.  
  
“Er … Mr. Weasley …”  
  
“Call me Arthur!”  
  
“Arthur, I was wondering … my flat’s not that big, and the side-car takes up quite a bit of room …” he stopped when he noticed Arthur’s crestfallen expression. “It’s a brilliant side-car, but how about I leave it with you? You’ll probably have more use for it than me, with all those motorbikes you must be confiscating from the gangs. Your job sounds tops, by the way.”  
  
“Yeah, it sounds brilliant; better than the Auror training I’m taking,” said James, flashing a covert grin at Sirius. “Anyway, there’s no way you could fit that thing in your flat, Padfoot; you live in a bloody shoebox.”  
  
Sirius sighed, sounding sincerely regretful. “Right you are, Prongs. I should have bought the two-bedroom place. Well, when I get a larger flat, I might be able to buy the side-car. That all right, Arthur?”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Just the idea of riding the bike with Remus made Sirius grind into his mattress every night for a week, stifling his moans with his fist. Actually doing it would have brought him off in about five seconds, and he started to wish he’d taken the side-car.   
  
On Saturday he flew over to Paris, wanting to try a club he’d heard about at Asgard. He was making a last-ditch effort to get over Remus. If anyone could do it for him, it would be a French bloke murmuring _oui-oui_ in his ear.   
  
The air was bitterly cold above the Channel in October. To keep warm, Sirius only needed to think of Remus climbing onto the bike behind him, wrapping his arms around Sirius’s waist and pressing his face to the back of Sirius’s neck. Maybe it was pathetic, but that’s how it was.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Sirius didn’t find the club until quite late at night, down the end of a one-way street. The sign above the door read _Le Garçon Rouge_, lit by one scarlet light-bulb. Sirius chained his bike and helmet to a lamp-post, and went in.   
  
A narrow flight of stairs, wooden and rough, led down to the club. Inside it was smoky from cigarettes and spliffs, and hookahs surrounded by sleepy-eyed young men, lounging on silk pillows. Someone was strumming a sitar. Sirius summoned up his confidence and walked to the bar, where he ordered a whisky on the rocks. He sipped his drink and tried not to look so inconspicuous, but he caught quite a few stares and whispers.  
  
Finally a man approached him, with brown hair curling to his shoulders. “English?” he asked, in French.   
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You speak French?”  
  
“A little.”  
  
The man nodded and kept speaking in French. “I’ll buy you a drink.”  
  
Sirius hated being treated like a girl. “Not necessary.”  
  
“I want to,” the man murmured, moving into Sirius’s personal space.  
  
Soon they were both drinking Pernod, which was emerald green and tasted a bit like Bertie’s liquorice beans.  
  
“My name is Robert. And you?”  
  
“John.”  
  
Robert reached over and stroked Sirius’s hand, from his wrist to his fingertips. “I like the English names. Very sharp; very masculine.”  
  
Sirius shivered and wasn’t sure what to say.  
  
“My sister is having a party tonight. A small gathering, at her apartment near _les Champs-Élysées_. Would you like to come?”  
  
Sirius had made a solemn agreement with himself: he wouldn’t go home with a strange man. But sitting beside Robert, who could have been Remus in ten years, Sirius didn’t think twice. He’d brought his wand, after all. What was the worst a Muggle could do?  
  
“I’d like to go,” Sirius said, with a slow smile. “I’ll take you there, if you give me directions.”   
  
Robert frowned. “I have a car.”  
  
“Wait until you see what I have.”  
  
They took the motorbike.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
The room was thick with smoke, laughter and music, and crowded with people taking every drug imaginable. Sirius had heard about cocaine, but he’d never seen people using it. He tried not to stare at the two women on the white velvet chaise-longe, who were going about it delicately and then dabbing their noses with lace handkerchiefs.  
  
Robert led Sirius further into his sister’s apartment; actually, it was more like an ornate house perched on top of an apartment building. There was enough gold and silver to put Grimmauld Place to shame, and each room was lit by a crystal chandelier.  
  
“John, this is my sister, Pauline,” said Robert, in French.  
  
Sirius clasped the hands and kissed the cheeks of a small, curvaceous woman, who winked at her brother and said something Sirius hadn’t learned from his tutor.  
  
“She says you are very handsome,” Robert mistranslated in English, and Sirius's face went hot.  
  
They sat together on a wide armchair, while Robert chatted to a group of women in fast-paced French. Sirius lost the thread of the conversation, but he didn’t mind; he was sleepy and warm. He drank cognac after cognac, smoked a few spliffs and smiled a lot, keeping an ear on the swirling synthesised music. One of the women offered him a pipe of something that wasn’t marijuana, and he put it to his lips.   
  
He didn’t remember much the next morning, when he found himself naked in an unfamiliar bed with Robert and another man. What he remembered, though, was how blissful it had felt to forget. For a few hours he’d been free of thinking, about being queer and Remus and James and his parents and Regulus and the looming war and how he’d never get married and what he was going to do with his life. The litany had stopped and he’d been free to just exist, for one night, for pleasure.  
  
  
\---  
5  
\---  
  
  
One morning Sirius woke up to a _pat-pat-pat_ sound, like the dripping of a tap. Only it wasn’t a tap: it was his owl, Louise, rapping against her cage, _pat-pat-pat_. Her cage was filthy and Louise was scrawny, and Sirius couldn’t remember the last time he’d let her out. Actually, he couldn’t remember what day it was, or even what month.   
  
When he took Louise’s cage to the window and released her, she slashed her beak across the back of his hand before flying away. He watched his blood well up and spill out. His hand was skinny and his nails were dirty. He went into the bathroom and pressed a wad of wet toilet paper against the cut. Then he caught sight of his skin-and-bones reflection in the cabinet mirror.  
  
“Oh shit,” he whispered, sitting on the dirty tiles and wrapping his arms around his bare chest. Blood dripped from his hand onto the waistband of his jeans.  
  
He sat there for a long time, maybe hours, knowing he needed to get help but not knowing where or how, or what good it would do. When was the last time he’d spoken to his friends? Everything was a blur of sex and music and smoke and electric lights. With a sinking feeling, he realised he must have missed the full moon; maybe more than one.  
  
Eventually he noticed the throbbing in his hand, so he soaked a towel and washed off all the blood, and then took out a bandage, something he always kept on hand for Remus, and wrapped it round and round the cut. He splashed his hair with water and slicked it down, brushed his teeth, and went into his bedroom to pull a sweater over his bony chest and the black tattoo on his shoulder. It was a crescent moon, and it still itched.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Lily opened the door a crack, keeping the chain fastened. She was dressed in James’s red-and-gold Quidditch jumper, which stretched down to her knees. Sirius could only see one side of her face. At first her green eye widened with surprise, but then it narrowed and she scowled. “Black?”  
  
“Is James in?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Sirius let out a breath of relief and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Oh, thank Merlin. Where is he?”  
  
“He’s on a training exercise,” Lily snapped, eyeing Sirius’s bandaged hand. “Why?”  
  
“How much longer will he be gone?”  
  
“About a week. What are you doing here, Black?”  
  
“Please, Lily. I need your help.”  
  
Lily bit her lip, shook her head and started to close the door.

Sirius reached out and stopped her. “Please let me in,” he whispered. “Please, Lily.”

She stared at him for a moment more, then sighed and removed the chain. “This doesn’t mean I’m going help you,” she told him, as he walked past her into the flat.  
  
The telly was on with the volume turned down and there was a pile of laundry on the couch. Lily sat beside it, picking up an unfolded pair of socks and twisting them in her lap. “Well?”  
  
Sirius sat on the armchair opposite her and put his face in his hands. “Lily, I’m queer,” he said. Then he started crying.  
  
For a few seconds Lily didn’t say or do anything. He was terrified she’d tell him to get out and never go near her family again. Then he heard her bare feet on the floorboards, coming towards him. She wrapped her soft arms around his shoulders and rested her cheek on his head. She smelt like roses.  
  
“There, there,” she murmured, kissing his hair. “It’s all right, love.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s all right.”  
  
“I’ve been horrible.”  
  
“Yes, you have; but it’s all right. We love you. We all still love you.”  
  
“I fucked up really badly, Lily.”  
  
Sirius was tired of lying. He told her about the drugs, the clubs and the parties; the anonymous sex with older men; the nights he didn’t remember and the nights he wished he could forget; and finally, he told her about Louise. That was the worst of it. “I nearly killed my owl. She hates me, now. She’ll never come back.”  
  
Lily was wrapped in his arms, stroking his back. “Maybe she won’t, but she’s still alive; that’s the important thing. If you hadn’t cared about her you wouldn’t be here.”  
  
“It was luck, that’s all. I mightn’t have gone back to my flat last night. I might’ve stayed in Copenhagen for another week.”  
  
“There’s no use thinking about what might have happened,” said Lily, briskly. She climbed out of his lap. “Come on, let’s clean you up and get you into bed, and I’ll make some chicken soup.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Sirius had gone to Lily because she was studying to be a Healer; he hadn’t expected sympathy and comfort. He hadn’t expected her to move the telly into her guest bedroom, bring him home-cooked meals or read to him like he was still a child.   
  
Eased by her potions, his withdrawal symptoms came and went sporadically. Sometimes he’d wake flushed hot and sweating, or shivering and clutching the bedding. Lily stayed by his side for the first few nights, sponging his forehead with cool water and stroking his hair. When he was lucid, she told him stories about her life.   
  
She told him how she’d first learned she was a witch: she’d fallen from a tree and bounced off the lawn. She told him about her sister, Petunia, and how they weren’t speaking anymore. She even told him about her friendship with Snape, and how it had ended in fifth year when he’d called her a Mudblood.   
  
In turn, Sirius told her about his childhood. He told her things he’d never told anyone else, not even James; not even Remus. He tried to make it sound all right, but she still cried. Holding his hand, she knelt beside the bed and sobbed against the sheets, and then she wiped her eyes and excused herself to make a pot of tea.  
  
For the last few days, Sirius was up and about. He helped Lily with housework, grocery shopping and her plans to turn the guest room into a nursery. At night they sat together on the couch, talking, reading and listening to her Nick Drake records.  
  
_“I was green, greener than the hill … where the flowers grew and the sun shone still … now I’m darker than the deepest sea … just hand me down, give me a place to be … and I was strong, strong in the sun … I thought I’d see when day is done … now I’m weaker than the palest blue … oh, so weak in this need for you …”_  
  
Then, one day when they were eating breakfast, James Apparated into the kitchen.  
  
  
\---  
6  
\---  
  
  
To his credit, James didn’t accuse them of anything. He looked at Lily, who hadn’t brushed her hair and was wearing nothing but one of his shirts. Then he looked at Sirius, who had paused with a spoon of porridge halfway to his mouth.   
  
“You’re home early,” Lily whispered.  
  
“Yes,” said James, going white. Without taking his eyes from Lily, he sat down.  
  
Lily was trembling at the expression on James’s face.  
  
“Prongs,” said Sirius, “don’t be stupid.”  
  
James turned to stare at him. “What are you doing here?”   
  
“Jamie, _please—_” Lily began.  
  
“It’s all right, Lily,” said Sirius, lowering his spoon back into his bowl. For a second he thought James was going to punch him. “You know I wouldn’t, Prongs. You know Lily wouldn’t.”  
  
There was a silence.  
  
Finally, James nodded and relaxed. “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry, Lily. Sorry, Padfoot.”  
  
“Nothing to be sorry for.”   
  
“I’ll be in the shower,” Lily said, smiling. She kissed James on the temple, ruffled his messy black hair, and walked out of the kitchen, closing the door behind her.  
  
“There’s something I need to tell you,” said Sirius, looking down at his porridge. “You might not want to be mates afterwards. That’s all right, if you don’t.”  
  
“What, did you kill someone?”  
  
“Just listen, all right?” Sirius asked. Then he took a deep breath. “I’m queer. I like blokes; I only like blokes. I don’t like girls at all. I mean, I like them. Lily’s nice, at least. But I don’t _like_ them.”  
  
He didn’t dare look up at James. It was so quiet he could hear the kitchen clock, _tock-tock-tock_, and then a lorry driving along the street outside. Maybe James wasn’t going to say anything, Sirius thought. Maybe James would just stand up and leave.  
  
“I can’t say I’m not shocked,” said James, speaking haltingly, carefully. “Or that I don’t think two blokes together is disgusting. I can’t help that; it’s just what I believe.”   
  
Sirius couldn’t breathe.   
  
“But you’re my brother,” James continued, “and I’ll love you whatever you do.”  
  
Sirius’s head jerked up. “What?”  
  
James was grinning. “I’m not saying it again, you wanker.”  
  
  
\---  
  
  
Sirius returned to his flat and emptied all his liquor bottles down the sink. After a few days, Louise came back. She was sleek and happy again, but she didn’t pay him any attention until he bought a fresh steak from the butcher’s and fed it to her, piece by piece, through the bars of her cage. Afterwards he let her out to sit on his shoulder, stroking her soft silver plumage. She gave his ear a friendly nip and nuzzled against his hair.  
  
Sirius owled Remus the next day:  
  
_I’m sorry about … well, you know what about. I wish I’d been there. I promised I would be and it’s my fault I wasn’t. Come over and I’ll shout you some fish’n’chips. Or some baked beans on toast. Or tea, if you’d rather.  
  
Padfoot_  
  
Two days later, Remus replied:  
_  
Actually I feel like making Thai red curry but can’t be bothered just for myself, so what about Friday night at mine? Be prepared to use cutlery like a civilised human being. _  
  
Sirius replied:  
  
_All right, see you then._  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“It’s ready,” Remus announced, from the kitchenette in the corner of his flat.   
  
He blended the curry and steamed rice with his wand, depositing the mixture into red-lacquered bowls. With another flick of his wand, the bowls were sitting on the table.   
  
Sirius stared at his food, breathing in the scent of lemongrass and coconut milk. He’d never tried Thai food before. “What’s this?” he asked, spearing a round, pale vegetable with his fork.   
  
“Thai eggplant; called a Kermit eggplant, sometimes.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
The light from Remus’s Moroccan candles brought peach tones out in his skin and bronze in his hair. He picked at his curry, inexpertly but delicately, with a pair of yellow plastic chopsticks. Sirius snuck glances and tried to think _this is the last time I’ll ever see Remus eating_ and _this is the last time I’ll see Remus at all_, but it was unimaginable.   
  
After clearing the table, Remus poured them each a glass of Japanese plum wine and Sirius lit a cigarette. He took a few puffs before he spoke. “I need to talk to you, Moony. About why I didn’t make the last two moons.”  
  
Remus nodded. “From your letter, I thought you might.”  
  
Sirius gulped down his wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Please let me finish. Don’t make me leave until I've said everything.”  
  
“What’ve you done?” Remus asked, like he thought Sirius was being melodramatic. “Have you murdered someone?”  
  
The words had been rolling back and forth in Sirius’s head for the past two days, until they’d made him queasy. He knew where to begin, at least. He stubbed his cigarette out in Remus’s ashtray and cleared his throat. “You’re a brilliant liar. You learned how to lie when you were five. Well, I learned when I was fifteen. You know how it is. It starts with a secret; something no one else can know or your life will be over. Maybe not over, right, but that’s how it feels.”   
  
“Yes, I know.”  
  
“The problem is that I’m really bloody tired of lying to everyone. I can’t do it, not like you. My secret’s not like yours, anyway. It’s not like my life’s in danger. At least, I don’t think it is.”  
  
Remus’s eyes had crinkled with confusion, but he just nodded.   
  
Sirius flushed and started tearing his paper napkin into bits. “This is going to sound … we’re mates, yeah? And this is going to make everything …”  
  
“It’s all right, Padfoot,” Remus reassured him, reaching over to give his shoulder a brief, friendly clasp.  
  
Sirius shrugged away and shook his head. “No, it isn’t. I’m queer and I’m in love with you. I think I’ve always been queer; that’s just how it is. I like blokes. I like you, Moony, and I can’t change that either. So I don’t think we can be mates anymore. I don’t know if you’ll want to see me at the moon or any other time. Really, it’s probably better for both of us, if you … I mean, obviously the idea of not seeing you again …” Sirius covered his eyes with his hand. “That’s it, anyway. I’ve said everything. I’ve got to um, got to go now, actually, so I’ll just go. Thanks for dinner and for letting me finish.”  
  
As Sirius walked to the door and pulled on his jacket, he waited for Remus to say something, but Remus kept silent. Sirius’s parents had been silent too, in those last few days before he’d left. He knew what it meant.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
It was nearly midnight and someone was knocking on Sirius’s door. He pulled the needle from the Dylan record on his turntable, flooding his flat with silence. The knock came again and Sirius thought he heard Remus’s voice.   
  
“Padfoot?”  
  
Sirius walked to the door. He pressed his eye to the peephole and saw Remus; distorted by the glass, but definitely Remus. Sirius opened the door and Remus brushed past him into the living room, dressed in jeans and a frayed grey jumper.  
  
Sirius closed the door and leant his back against it, waiting. Remus was holding an album-shaped paper bag. He probably wanted to return the Billie Holiday record.  
  
“I …” Remus began. He was facing the window. “I don’t really know how to … you didn’t really give me time to process … I don’t know what to say.”  
  
“I got that impression, yeah.” Sirius wanted to sound nonchalant, but his voice shook and stuttered. “You don’t need to say anything, really.”  
  
“You’re serious, though, aren’t you? You’re seriously in love with me.”  
  
Sirius flushed hot with anger and shame. “Of course I am. Now stop torturing me and get out of here. You can keep the bloody album.”  
  
Remus turned around and looked at Sirius. Sirius glared back. Remus’s face was bloodless and he was trembling. The tips of his ears had turned red. He walked over to Sirius’s turntable and took out the Dylan album, laying it carefully on the coffee table.  
  
“What are you doing?” Sirius asked, but Remus’s only response was to take his album out of its bag and click it into place on the turntable.  
  
There was a moment of fuzzy static from the speakers, then a few familiar notes, before Celestina Warbeck began to sing.   
  
_“Oh come and stir my cauldron … and if you do it right … I'll boil you up some hot strong love … to keep you warm tonight …”_  
  
Sirius stared as Remus walked towards him. He kept staring even when Remus was pressing him against the door, kissing him, their mouths wet and open. Then he pushed Remus away and held him at arm’s length. “I thought you only liked girls.”  
  
“I thought you knew I was a brilliant liar.”  
  
“Ha.”  
  
Then they were kissing again. Sirius slid his hands under Remus’s shirt and jumper, and thought _shirt-lifter_ like he always did, but then he didn’t think because Remus was kissing and licking his ear.   
  
“I know it’s a stupid song,” Remus whispered. “I know it’s girly. My dad gave it to my mum and I just thought … well, you know what I mean by it, don’t you?”  
  
They both laughed, breathless and shaky, against each other’s stubbled cheeks.  
  
“It’s a stupid song,” Sirius whispered back. “But when they played it at the wedding reception, I really wanted to dance with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This reposting is dedicated to my younger self. You did a hard thing, kid, and I'm proud of you.
> 
> In this fandom, twelve years seems appropriate. But rather than wasting away in Azkaban, I've basically become a poster girl for the It Gets Better movement.
> 
> Thanks to my beta reader, and to everyone who has commented on and recommended this story. Your support has meant a lot to me.
> 
> Soundtrack in order of songs:
> 
> 1\. The Sex Pistols, ‘Liar’ (playing in background at record shop)  
2\. Billie Holiday, ‘Solitude’  
3\. The Village People, ‘Macho Man’  
4\. Nancy Sinatra, ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’  
5\. Celestina Warbeck (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling), ‘A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love’  
6\. Bob Dylan, ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’  
7\. Jean Michel Jarre, ‘Oxygene 8’ (playing in background at party)  
8\. Nick Drake, ‘Place To Be’
> 
> There’s a Bob Dylan reference hidden in the story, so kudos and virtual cookies to anyone who finds it! 
> 
> Inspired partly by this moment from HBP: ‘Meanwhile, Remus Lupin, who was thinner and more ragged-looking than ever, was sitting beside the fire, staring into its depths as though he could not hear Celestina’s voice.’
> 
> Asgard is based on a real gay club called Heaven, but all my knowledge of the place comes from websites.


End file.
